Customer call centers, or simply, “call centers,” are often the first point of contact for customers seeking direct assistance from manufacturers and service vendors. Call centers provide customer support and problem resolution reachable by telephone, including data network-based telephone services, such as Voice-Over-Internet Protocol (VoIP), or by a Web application that allows customers to make calls. Although World Wide Web-and email-based customer support are becoming increasingly available, call centers still offer a convenient and universally-accessible forum for remote customer assistance. The timeliness and quality of service provided by call centers is critical to ensuring customer satisfaction. Minimizing delays is crucial, even when caller volume is high.
To provide satisfactory customer service to all the customers, a call center must be equipped with well-trained agents to handle many types of calls in different subject matter. However, training agents can be costly and limited. Thus, conventional current call centers tend to encounter problems including identifying an available agent who can handle the customer specific question or obtaining the requested information from specialized employees, such as supervisors. Meanwhile, customers may remain in a call queue. Such a long hold time or frequent interruption of the call eventually lowers a level of customer satisfaction.
Specifically, conventional call center routing systems, such as Avaya Call Center Automatic Call Distributor, provided by Avaya Inc., Basking Ridge, N.J., uses a type-in extension number to reach to an agent in the call center. To add other participants, the call must first put into a hold while the other participant is added on a separate line, and then the two lines must be joined as a conference. Such a system is not designed to directly integrate multiple inputs in-band without interruption and use of a separate line. Thus, using the Avaya system, when an agent needs further information to answer a caller's question or solve the caller's issue, the information can be provided to the agent by speaking with a supervisory agent on a separate line while placing the caller in a queue as the traditional system is not designed to support integration of real-time inputs in-band. Further, such a system is time consuming as the system keeps a customer on hold.
Accordingly, there is a need for providing call assistance at a best time for an agent who is on an on-going call without interrupting the call between the agent and a caller.